


Lily Pads and Popcorn

by edy



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, M/M, Missing Persons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 13:43:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16662049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edy/pseuds/edy
Summary: Exactly a year since Tyler dropped off the face of the planet, he showed up in Josh's living room.





	Lily Pads and Popcorn

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: "hey, man, fuck you"
> 
> -
> 
> here's one of the ficlets i hope to one day expand, but for now, have this.

Exactly a year since Tyler dropped off the face of the planet, he showed up in Josh's living room.

It was late, a few minutes past midnight, and Josh felt as if his skin could catch fire. The popcorn bag spun around on the tray in the microwave, catching on the enclosed sides every few seconds. His mom had always told him he'd start glowing if he stared at the microwave for too long, but he couldn't help it. He wasn't motivated to move, not even when he heard the television in the room over start spitting out static. He merely tilted his head, closed his eyes for a moment, and continued watching his popcorn bag spin.

When the timer went off, he waited until the stray kernels stopped popping before grabbing the bag and beginning the task of shaking and opening it without burning himself. Next to the fridge, he pulled open a cabinet, poured some butter into the bag despite the bag already advertising it had extra butter inside, and tried to ignore how the static seemed to grow louder. It was like a child craving attention. "Please," Josh thought he heard. "Please…"

He slammed the cabinet shut and shook the popcorn bag some more. He held it between forefinger and thumb. He didn't want to burn himself. His skin still felt hot.

The living room was a cave, and Josh liked to keep it that way. This late at night, he knew he should have some sort of light on to keep the potential for burglars at bay. Josh couldn't find it in himself to care. He wandered through these halls and the streets without thought or attribution. He was a ghost to everybody and himself, and as it inched closer to the one-year anniversary of Tyler disappearing, Josh could tell he was starting to disappear himself. He was lighter. The appetite he did manage to attract was small. Every aspect of his emotions, from pleasure to pain, was so unbelievably numb he didn't ever see it regaining tangibility. He often pinched himself so he could feel something, and sometimes, if he squeezed his eyes shut and stopped breathing, he felt his skin pinch back.

As he entered the living room, the static from the television turned muted, and the voices on the show Josh had been watching returned. But there was something else. Gurgling, maybe, though Josh wasn't sure. He shook the bag of popcorn and took in the room. He sized it up, shoulders back and jaw set, but this was futile as he cringed at the mess strung across his carpet. His foot sunk into the material, lower, until he could feel the concrete foundation underneath, and even then, his foot continued to sink. He pulled out his leg, still cringing, still shaking his popcorn bag.

Josh desired darkness, had a consistent yearning for it, but his better judgment, despite how much he didn't care, begged for him to flick on a lamp. So, he did, and his television turned off, and then back on, and Josh watched a hand stretch from the screen, shaking as Josh shook. This hand, fingers gnarled and knuckles puffed and swollen, continued to tremble as the hand turned into a wrist and the wrist turned into a forearm.

The mess across his carpet, Josh noticed, resembled river water, in which it contained moss and small lily pads. Josh expected a ribbit or two to fill the room. He heard only silence as this hand quickly withdrew into the television, and the other hand, the left one, just as beaten and broken as the right, if not more so, poked its way through the static to wave each crooked digit at Josh. This hand turned into a wrist, lined three times, and the wrist turned into a forearm, lined, too, impeccably lined with dark ink that had Josh dropping to his knees and crawling toward the television set. He didn't care about his popcorn. He didn't care about the pond in his living room. He wrapped his fingers around the forearm sticking out of his television and pulled with all his might.

A shoulder came out, attached to a pale and impossibly scarred torso, and then came the crown of a head. Josh helped this rebirth in any way he could, his fingers catching on the wet skin, slick with oil and what he thought might be blood. He pulled, and when he saw Tyler's face, battle-worn, Josh wept.

"Tyler," he whispered, and Tyler vomited on his thighs.

"Hey, man," Josh whispered, couldn't stop whispering. "Fuck you."

Tyler crawled the rest of his way from the television and collapsed in Josh's lap. He was weak, barely breathing. Josh stroked his matted hair.

"Is that popcorn?" asked Tyler.

Josh laughed.


End file.
